


love letter in listography;

by maidenstar



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-10 00:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2004429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maidenstar/pseuds/maidenstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He recovers his memory in shards and snapshots, and he writes them all down in lists and offers them up to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love letter in listography;

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLIE DEAR! ilysm and I'm so so so so sorry this is so late I've just been so busy with rl and bb, but I hope it's okay and I hope you enjoyed your birthday, you deserve the best (birth)days ever with lots rainbows and happiness and all the cake in the world because you are wonderful and perfect <333

i) _She chose him_. He didn’t know why, would perhaps never know why. He was the quiet, nervy kid, all funny lengths and angles; still yet to grow into himself, and he’d always thought she’d been pretty popular at the Academy. But still she sat herself down in front of him one lunchtime, complimenting his tie and his contribution to Dr. Vaughan’s class in one breath. She smiled and laughed and listened to his ideas. No one had ever done that before. After the seventh consecutive lunchtime spent in her glow, he almost began to wonder if he cared if no one else ever did so again.

ii) She told him much, much later that he’d been her first friend too. She didn’t know it, but that admission had brought a lump to his throat.  
  
iii)He had lots of favourite things about Jemma Simmons, he quickly found. But perhaps his favourite of all was the way she always seemed to make positives from negatives. From a purely non-mathematical, non-scientific standpoint of course.  Her bright, happy attitude kept him warm when he sometimes needed to ward off the cold, and even if there were days when she talked a little much, or a little too long, (he was a quiet soul after all) her glow was infectious. Even when they argued, most often over the minutiae of each design they drew up, it was hard to ever feel gloomy in Jemma Simmons’s light.  
  
iv) He never felt more at home than when he was in their lab at Sci-Ops with her. Even their shared apartment didn’t feel so alive with memories (perhaps because they were always working in the lab, neither of them bothered about late nights and early starts when there was science to be done and they had the chance to do it together).  
  
v) Neither of them knew who leaned in to kiss the other the first time, only that they’d never wanted to pull away again.  
  
vi) Anti-frat rules at SHIELD aside, they were private people and neither of them ever minded that the romantic side of their relationship was a complete secret. Their bond had always been so much more than just a case of _platonic_ or _romantic._  
  
vii)She had a habit of checking her emails in bed, always dropping her mobile on her face when, exhausted, sleep overcame her.

viii) Both of them cried the day they argued about joining Coulson’s team. Neither had wanted to give ground and though they’d bickered before, they’d never argued like they did that night. He’d stormed out and not returned until morning, having just walked aimlessly round the city, trying to clear his thoughts. Headstrong and stubborn, though apologies fell from both of their lips like kisses (and there had been plenty of those too) it took months before they ever admitted their tears to each other. Neither had needed that admission anyway.

ix) She sighs against his mouth when he kisses her, and she always smiles against him as their lips move against each other. He fancies that sometimes he can _taste_ the happiness on her lips, a flavour painted in citrus colours.  
  
x) Somehow, she always seems to manage to miss a tiny corner of her makeup when she removes it each evening, and she’d wake the next morning with the faintest smudge of black under one eye, or a tiny smear of old foundation on her cheek. He thinks she’s beautiful all the time, even with tiny smudges and smears on her face, perhaps especially then. He likes the way the morning dances softly across her face.

xi) Jemma Simmons was the bravest person he’d ever met, and he could never, ever forget her, even when he forgot all else.

 

 

It is 8 in the morning on the 11th of September, when he finds himself tentatively watching two glasses of orange juice, terrified the liquid will tip over the edge and ruin his hard work.

She wakes up in her bunk a heartbeat later, to the sensation of him getting into bed, and to the smell of pancakes and chocolate.

“Please tell me no one has died,” she mumbles, face still pressed into her pillow as he wriggles down the bed to lay beside her, legs brushing against her own.

“What?”

“Is it me or are you up unreasonably early to say it’s a Sunday?”

Laughing, he cranes his neck to kiss her hair, hands ghosting her face as he rubs his thumb over cheek, brushing over a tiny patch of pinkish-brown that had escaped her attentions last night.

“Of course. It’s your birthday,” he replies adding, with a slight frown, “happy birthday. I made you breakfast.”

He probably should have lead with that one.

Slowly sitting up and stretching, tiny noise of contentment caught in her throat, she glances over at the tray he’d perched on the bedside table, taking in the pancakes, the orange juice, and the tea; eyes lingering on the tiny fake flowers he’d had to put in another glass tumbler because they hadn’t been able to find a vase. 

Pulling him into a hug and thanking him, she laughs slightly.

“Was this all a lone effort?” she has a knowing look on her face, has learnt from experience that he cannot cook, could probably burn a side salad if he tried.

“Trip might have helped,” he mumbles. “Just a little though.” Her answering smile is fond, and appreciative too.

“And is this?” she asks as she leans over, stretching to reach a tiny white envelope propped up against the makeshift vase. It has her name on it, but she waits for his nod before she takes it.

“Yeah. It’s for you. I mean. It’s not anything…it’s not…it’s not exactly special,” he has underestimated just how nervous he would be upon giving her this. “We’ve not stopped off anywhere so I couldn’t buy anything and my hands, well they’re still…” his words melt into the warm morning air around them. This is the first year in a long time he could not make a present for her. She nods softly as he holds his shaky hands up, quickly dropping the envelope into her lap and pressing her palms against his, threading their fingers together.

There is a moment’s silence as he brings the backs of her hands to his lips, kissing them lightly.

“Read it.” It’s a request more than a command and he can barely get his voice above a shaky whisper. She seems nervous herself as she tears the envelope open and he watches her eyes dart across the page, sees her expression change as a whole story plays out on the page, a list of eleven things he knows about her, and about himself.

“Fitz,” she whispered, voice caught in her throat. “What?…I…”

He finds he must clear his own throat a little before he can speak.

“After I woke up, the one person I remembered was you, but it hurt that I couldn’t really remember anything _about_ you, or about us. And it was upsetting too to see how much it hurt you, even if you wouldn’t admit it. And, as I remembered things, May encouraged me to make a list, and soon I was remembering so much that it felt as if there weren’t enough hours in the day to keep updating you. Sometimes I still recall stuff, even now. I don’t know whether I hate that there’s stuff I still can’t call to mind, or love the moment of remembering it.”

He watches as she struggles to find something to say. He goes on, words hurried, colliding into one another in his nervousness.

“There’s more than this, loads of pages, I’m starting to struggle to find a place for them all now. I just chose eleven because I thought, well, it’s your birthday so…” not for the first time he trails off. He glances up at her beneath his eyelashes, waiting for her approval.

“Fitz, I...I don’t know what to say,” a stray tear wends its way down her cheek until he kisses it away. “I love it. Thank you,” she adds before her lips find his, and she sighs when he kisses her back, smiling against him until they break apart. His lips are on her neck soon enough, though, and her hands find his hair.

Though it is tempting, afterwards, to sit together and sift through Fitz’s box of papers which, feeling like a teenage boy, he’d had to retrieve from under his bed, they decide together to wait. They have years, decades, and they make use of them, until the list is done, shared in Christmas presents and on Valentine’s Day (the only gifts they ever bother exchanging on February the 14th) and when one list ends, another begins, a lifelong love letter of memories they make and write together, so that neither of them ever need worry that they’ll forget another moment again. 


End file.
